Our in-depth Menuzen vs. Adobe article has everything you need to know. We’ll look at all the critical features your digital menu should have and compare how Menuzen and Adobe stack up against each other. While Adobe menu solutions may have a hard time measuring up to Menuzen’s free menu templates, they do put up a great fight, as we’ll see shortly. However, before we get into the nitty-gritty of this post, let’s briefly present an overview of both menu design platforms.
.jpg)
Let's briefly describe each of these two excellent digital menu suppliers before we compare them.
.jpg)
Menuzen is an Australian-based digital free online menu maker exclusively serving the hospitality industry. Their offerings provide a comprehensive set of tools for food businesses to showcase their offerings digitally, accept online orders, gather customer data, and create restaurant websites. The company has done an exceptional job providing businesses with the tools they need to succeed.
Adobe is an all-purpose graphic design platform with offices in many countries. The company has a host of graphic design software like Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator. However, Adobe Express is a tool dedicated to restaurant menu design, and most of our discussion in this article will be about it. Featuring over 1,000 menu templates, it’s certainly a force to reckon with in the menu design industry.
The following table picks out the major features of Menuzen and Adobe based on different set criteria to provide a visual representation of how they compare against each other.
Cost
Limited free features or $13 monthly for the “Grow” package; pay $5 monthly forever for the “Grow” package when you opt for the early access offer.
Limited free features or $16/month for pro.
Item Manager
Update items on the go: alter your photos, add new items, update pricing, establish subcategories, and add information without having to completely redesign your menu.
Ease of Menu Creation
Simplified creation with unique zone editing.
Slightly more complex with limited zone editing.
Website Builder Feature
Free restaurant website builder.
Language Translation Feature
Under development.
Market Analytics Feature
Has an analytics feature.
Has a market analytics feature for customer insights.
Extra Graphic Design Tools
Has additional graphic design tools for creating flyers, logos, stickers, etc.
Business Manager feature
Set up and manage multiple menus in one account, h with individual items, sections and settings
Organizations can design for multiple locations in one account.
Let's now look more closely at how these two top websites for designing digital menus compare on various fronts.
Menuzen and Adobe Express are easier to use than other design platforms and software such as CorelDRAW. However, Menuzen stands out as one of the best Adobe alternatives since it goes the extra mile by simplifying the use of basic design elements like the font.
The following section sheds more light on this.
No matter how mediocre your design skills are, you’ll hardly face any significant challenges using Menuzen. You can design a new menu within minutes from the free templates provided, or make broad-based changes to an existing layout.
You won’t need an expert guide to use Menuzen’s intuitive menu design steps. Most of the design process is simply a matter of using the drag and drop editing tool, while other editable parts are as straightforward as inserting images, changing fonts, or typing text.
Even if you feel apprehensive about designing your menu due to a lack of design skills, you needn’t worry. With Menuzen, your design phobia will be a thing of the past. Plus, our customer support team is available 24/7, even on holidays, to assist you in any way.
Adobe is an intuitive and easy-to-use design platform, albeit with a steep learning curve compared to Menuzen. This is because not all of Adobe Express’s templates and design tools are explicitly for restaurant menus; they’re broad-based tools you can use for different designs. Therefore, these tools often perform broader functions and require more time and effort to master.
If you design a menu using Adobe Express, most actions would be drag-and-drop. However, fixing specific areas of a template may require advanced design skills and software like InDesign and Photoshop, implying more cost on your end.
Of course, you can design any menu from start to finish with Adobe; but only if you’re highly skilled in graphic design and have the time to do so. Nonetheless, it’s easy to tweak some templates on Adobe Express to insert your items. If you opt for this route, understand that the resulting menu will likely be just average at influencing how customers spend.
Using Adobe will be harder to get to the industry standard with little design skills than Menuzen. On the other hand, the best among all Adobe menu maker alternatives, like Menuzen, doesn’t require any design skill.
Let’s simplify this criterion with the following subheadings for easier understanding.
There are more than 1,000 menu templates in Adobe Express’s database, but most seem to have been created by people without a proper understanding of menu science/psychology. One of our published resources on how to design a menu explains this concept in great depth. A study of the post and an analysis of some of the menu templates in Adobe Express’s database will clarify that most templates lack some critical features or need a rework.
For example, it’s not uncommon to find menu templates with unaesthetic colour combos like black themes and blue font colours on Adobe. Such menus, even when printed on paper, aren’t very legible and can be frustrating for the average customer to read. Now, imagine the challenge for people with impaired vision.
Moreover, many Adobe Express templates aren’t designed to accommodate pictures, which are vital design content, especially in digital menus and when you don’t have many menu items. For one, they strongly influence a customer’s willingness to spend.
Many templates in Adobe Express’s database lack psychological features like strategic arrangements for dishes, suggesting that non-specialised designers created them.
Menu design is NOT only about the aesthetic display of dishes; the template should be structured to accommodate all the requirements of a complete world-class menu, influencing customers to spend. This is the most important reason why Menuzen tops the list of all Adobe menu maker alternatives.
It’s not as if you cannot use Adobe Express’s templates to produce menu layouts that meet all the requirements of a great restaurant menu. However, the work required to achieve that may prove impossible unless you have in-depth graphic design skills and access to tools like InDesign and Photoshop.
If you observe both menu providers critically, Menuzen’s quality isn’t surprising. Even though Adobe Express is a more prominent name and has been around longer than Menuzen, one of the most significant advantages of Menuzen as a free menu maker is that the brains behind it are hospitality industry experts. By this, we mean people who know exactly what menus food businesses require.
On the other hand, Adobe Express is a large multi-purpose software that serves a broad range of industries, making specialising difficult. Menuzen’s specialisation in food services means the company understands more about restaurant menus than its generic competitors like Adobe Express.
How do Menuzen and Adobe compare in terms of the breadth of design offered?
Do you need an extensive range of design capabilities or just a specialised one for your restaurant menu?
Let’s find out!
Adobe Express is a multi-purpose design platform you can use to sketch T-shirts, invitation cards, wedding calendars, etc. However, these extra design capabilities aren’t necessary for restaurant menu design.
For example, Menuzen, as one of the top Adobe alternatives for restaurant menus, won't be able to offer you templates for wedding calendar designs or photo editing. The company sticks to the niche of deep knowledge we have, and there’s hardly any menu concept you can’t actualise via Menuzen.
On the other hand, Adobe Express could do any designs you want, but as seen above, their restaurant menu templates haven’t been optimised to comply with every vital factor of a menu design.
So, in terms of design range, Menuzen is the opposite of Adobe Express. However, when it comes to perfect ready-made free menu templates, Menuzen outstrips Adobe Express by a wide margin. With the free plan by Menuzen, it is a no-brainer for small restaurant businesses to get started and pay nothing for a more specialised menu-making process.
That said, if you want to use your menu software for other designs irrelevant to restaurant menus, even if it means sacrificing more money or a less optimised menu, then Adobe Express is a better choice. However, if your primary concern is finding a platform for designing world-class restaurant menus that influences customers’ decisions regarding their portion and expenditure, Menuzen is what you need.
Another thing to note about the templates provided by one of the top Adobe alternatives, Menuzen, is that the platform’s learning curve is less steep relative to Adobe. It will literally take you minutes to create your perfect menu. There’s also 24/7 customer support dedicated to assisting you throughout your menu design journey.
Although Adobe Express offers a drag-and-drop solution for menu designers, its learning curve is still steep compared to Menuzen’s. This is because your skills must be advanced to an expert level to realise some design goals on Adobe.
Every digital menu provider tries to do something to beat competitors; we’ve decided to classify these as extras or miscellaneous features. We’ll examine the features you’ll enjoy at Menuzen that aren’t in Adobe Express and vice versa.
First, your Menuzen menus can be “easily” updated on the go. You won’t take much time to fix errors or update information. Even when in transit, you can just take out your mobile device, launch the Menuzen platform and make changes to your menus across all devices with a few clicks. It isn’t exactly the same with Adobe Express.
Yes, you can update information and correct mistakes on the go with Adobe. Still, it typically takes longer due to the platform’s broadness, variety of tools, and long processes for updating and correcting information. Since Menuzen is specifically for restaurants, we’ve made information updates and corrections of mistakes fast and easy. While Adobe Express has a mobile app, the range of tools stacked in the system is simply too broad to be managed on mobile quickly and with ease.
Secondly, with Menuzen, you receive a custom URL and QR code for every menu designed. This feature allows for easy publishing and marketing of your restaurant menu on social media as well as on the free restaurant storefront Menuzen provides.
Unlike one of the best Adobe alternatives, Menuzen, Adobe Express is a design-only platform. It offers no tools to help you gather insights from customers. On the other hand, Menuzen is working on an analytical tool feature that helps you collect important customer information, which you can use for marketing, promotion and other restaurant activities.
Another powerful Menuzen feature you won’t find on Adobe Express is the language translation tool. While this feature hasn’t yet been integrated into Menuzen, it’s being rigorously worked upon now, as you read. With this tool, tourists or people from other countries visiting your restaurant can read your menu in their native language.
One area where Adobe Express trumps Menuzen is that it allows for integration with Google Drive. That way, you can import images saved in your Google Drive, such as logos and menu items, into your Adobe menu editor. Menuzen doesn’t currently support this integration. Nonetheless, with Menuzen’s paid plan, you can save unlimited menu images on your account dashboard for use in menu design.
No platform is perfect, so it's important to look into and briefly summarise each software's good and bad sides.
Easy to use
Easy to manage items on the go
Menu analytics feature (coming soon)
Embeddable menus
No extra graphic design features
Multi-restaurant owners may need to opt for the paid “Grow” plan
Extra design features
Lots of templates
Additional promotional products
Expensive
No business manager feature
No platform is perfect, so it's important to look into and briefly summarise each software's good and bad sides.
Great value for money.
Specialised in menu design.
World-class templates.
A host of extra features.
Relatively new.
General purpose design platform.
A wide range of design tools.
Been around for a long time.
Steeper learning curve.
Less optimised menu templates.
No platform is perfect, so it's important to look into and briefly summarise each software's good and bad sides.
Great value for money.
Specialised in menu design.
World-class templates.
A host of extra features.
Relatively new.
General purpose design platform.
A wide range of design tools.
Been around for a while.
Steeper learning curve.
Less optimised menu templates.
Menuzen is better than Adobe since it offers the following:
While the best free alternative to Adobe Creative Cloud apps depends on your specific needs and preferences, here are some options:
The answer depends on the user’s specific needs and level of expertise. Canva and Adobe are popular graphic design tools with different features and target audiences. While Canva is a more user-friendly and affordable option for beginners and small businesses, Adobe is a more robust and professional tool for advanced designers and larger organisations.
Our Opinion: If you’re a beginner or on a tight budget, Canva may be the better choice. Adobe may be a better fit if you require more advanced features and a larger budget. However, Menuzen is the best free menu maker for both small- and large-scale restaurant businesses — see our Canva vs. Menuzen comparison for more details.
.jpg)
From our comprehensive Menuzen vs. Adobe comparison, it’s easy to see why Menuzen is the better choice for menu design. Menuzen is tailored explicitly for designing menus for restaurants and other hospitality businesses, while Adobe Express offers general-purpose design tools that may not be ideal for menu design. To put it to the test, try out Menuzen’s by signing up for free today and see the difference for yourself!
